Considerations on building a robot

Why…

One of my childhood interests has always been robotics. I think most people have at least somewhat of a fascination with robots when they are young. Over the last several years when I was working I began to realize that robots in construction are really underdeveloped.

The reason I believe this is because I spent a lot of time learning and teaching construction skills. I realized during that time that robots in construction are imminent and could have been introduced already.

My goal is to experiment and build a robotics platform that can accomplish some of those construction task and hopefully more.

Philosophy…

Frequently in construction a skilled tradesman learns a variety of skills necessary to accomplish a task. In many situations the task can be broken down into several parts and an several unskilled people can perform the task in assembly line fashion even faster. The biggest limiting factor in this situation is keeping them mobilized because work gets done fast, and bodies have to be moved and the set up at each location. You also need expert intervention 5% of the time.

Goals…

Here are some of my goals for a robot design that would make robotics go mainstream.

Final Thoughts…

Any one who knows me knows I’m trying to exit the economy. As a thought experiment imagine a square cube 18″ in size that glows with a soft white light. This box, by voice command, floats through the air absorbing zero point energy and can create any object imaginable. How would the world be different? Self replicating robots have the power to make most people irrelevant or give them new purpose. The power to destroy conventional currency, which buys human labor, and replace it with a guaranteed deflationary electronic currency or simply replace currency with code. Robots will be necessary to build spacecraft as well or maybe fight a war. A war which might be created because of the excess they themselves produce.

I wonder if the immediate downside is that it will increase production to such a large degree that our current culture of greed and conspicuous consumption in some countries and overpopulation in others may spiral out of control. There may also be a dramatic shift between people who understand how to manipulate the robots and the people who do not. Hopefully the smart and hardworking people can use the production increase to escape the current system and build something better.